


Resolution

by Jevil_Joss



Series: World of Heroes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Superheroes, introduction to characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 08:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18133469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jevil_Joss/pseuds/Jevil_Joss
Summary: There are heroes. There are villains. There are those in the middle.





	Resolution

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of quick introductions to characters I plan on writing about later.

It was a world of heroes and villains. The year was 2100, and it had only been so a day.

A man walked across a roof. He was in his mid-fifties, and had spent half his life fighting evil. The man stared off the edge of the skyscraper. Below, a pro hero, “Skeleton Man”, fought in his skeleton-style mech suit against a villain--he’d said his name a minute ago, though the man couldn’t recall what he’d said. Another hero--this one newer than the pro he fought beside--fought as well. He called himself “the Incredible Ant”.

Silver had chosen his name carefully. He hadn’t wanted his name to be flashy, like Gold, or cruel, like Iron, but he’d ended up flashy. Now, he was more like iron.

A gauntlet clenched into a fist. He had been the best of the best. But he had done nothing for the world.

Skeleton Man, Ant, Iron Tank, the Commando--all heroes who would give their lives for the greater good.

They were good men. Silver didn’t want to have to kill them, but, the way his plans were, he was going to. It was a new year. New year, new plans.

Full steam ahead.

Flipping his cape around, Silver strode off, armor clanking as he walked. It sounded like the villain would fight a bit longer They could save people. But if he could win, he’d save more.

Heroes saved other people. The problem with that? They couldn’t save themselves.

 

#  **Resolution**

Jonathan Schreid gave the most un-heroic moan of his life. He was on one of the top floors of the hero work building--the exact name eluded him at the moment--and his arm was in a cast.

The doctor, Sarah Ford, tutted as she continued scraping blood off his face. “Wherever your power came from, it doesn’t appear to do you much good. No matter how much your carapace blocks, you still rattle around in there!” At seventy, she showed no signs of aging, due to her healing power, though she would still die of old age. She was also a mother of eight and grandmother of twelve, and taking care of people was in her blood.

“And what would have happened if the villain--” Jonathan still refused to say the stupid name--“had punched my face _without_ the carapace?”

“Well, like his name suggests, he would have crushed your face,” she conceded. “Face Crusher--”

“ _Don’t_ call him by that garbage name,” Jonathan told her.

“Whatever you say, _Ant,_ ” Sara said, giving him a look.

“Just--fix my arm,” Jonathan said, covering his face. The door opened, and his friend, James Mercury, local police captain, entered.

“I drilled Skele-Tony about the villain,” he said, flipping through pages in his clipboard. “The--” He sighed dramatically. “The villain known as ‘Face Crusher’ seems to have had a size-based power, allowing him to grow to large sizes. But, since we had Skele-Tony’s tank missiles and your, well,” he gave a non-commital gesture towards Jonathan. “Whatever _that_ is.”

“It’s called desperation,” Sarah said dryly.

“You’re still spry and good looking, considering your age,” James commented, without looking up.

Before Sarah could reply, he said to Jonathan, “As Skele-Tony was the ‘Pro’ hero on the scene, figuratively and literally, I don’t need to interview you. But, I was wanting to collect an official statement on the ‘Face Crusher’.” He grimaced.

“He needs therapy?”

“That’ll work,” James said, writing it down.

“I notice _you_ weren’t among the cops last night,” Jonathan said, glaring at him.

“Wednesday night,” James replied.

“Oh. Sorry, I forgot.”

“It’s fine,” James said, looking up from his clipboard. At fifty-six, his hair was beginning to gray, and was clearly not combed, but he was suspiciously clean-shaven. “If I were still that messed up about it, I probably wouldn’t be a cop, Johnny.”

“I prefer Jonathan.”

“In any case,” James said, ignoring him, “I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with Matathias Black’s parents. Luckily, David was assigned to that. On a personal level, I feel like anyone named Matathias Black would in fact become a supervillain.” He sighed. “I’d love to stay and chit-chat, but I’ve gotta deal with the nutjobs at the Supervillain Reformation Department.” He tipped his hat and strode off.

“So sad, about his wife,” Sarah sighed, laying her hand on Johnny’s arm. A warm, pinkish light shined from the broken arm as the bones reset themselves.

“I never met his first wife, but I did meet his daughter,” Johnny said. “I happened to be passing during the funeral.”

“Was the villain who did it ever caught?”

“Not that we know of,” Johnny answered. He flexed his newly fixed arm. “Thanks.”

She smiled at him. Johnny was never sure whether or not it was part of her power, but he always felt safe around her. He wondered vaguely as he left, straightening the black coat that made up most of his costume, if James felt safer with her.

Mostly out of habit, he engaged his power as he left the building, growing a black shell out of his skin. Unfortunately, it didn’t cover his clothes, so he wore a costume. Black jacket, black long-sleeved shirt, and blue jeans.

It wasn’t much of a costume, but he thought it was better than a skeleton mech suit. People waved at him as he passed. Most people knew who he was--’secret identities’ were a thing of the past--but some just addressed him as Ant. He sometimes felt bad for not knowing any of their names, but he was only one man.

He walked into his apartment building--or at least, the half that had been reconstructed. Since he had moved into it, a villain who went by Solar Flare had destroyed half of it. At the time, Johnny had been in Cairn City.

As fire was basically his kryptonite, he was glad of that.

“Hello, Anna,” he called to his neighbor. “Forgot your keys again?”

Anna Thompson, bag of groceries in one hand, purse in other, grinned. “Nope. I had them right...right…” She riffled through her purse. “Would you mind if I store these in your fridge while I look in my car? Christina’s not going to be home for another two hours…”

Johnny was aware of her roommate situation--Christina did not like it when Anna lost the apartment keys. He nodded and unlocked his door for her. He threw off his jacket and removed his carapace as he strode in.

As Anna started packing his fridge with leftover pudding and root beer, he put his ‘work phone’ on the charger and unplugged his ‘home phone’.

“Three missed calls--let’s see--don’t know you, one from Mom, and--oh, that’s my sister. I gotta call her back, Anna.”

“How is it with you two?” Anna asked, staring deep into her grocery bag with intensity.

“Well, as good as possible, all things considered.” With a push of a button, he called his sister, Susan Schreid.

  
If you were on the run from the mob, you’d run into Cairn City, cause they wouldn’t be crazy enough to follow you. It had earned the nickname ‘Doom City’, which, in Richard Steele's mind, fit better.

He was a man of forty, with a rugged beard and dark hair, who carried with him an air of intimidation. Very few people would mess with him, though that probably had more to do with the fact that he forged the strongest metal on the planet.

Richard sat in his house, which was more of a factory than a house. He wore his usual, a black hood with jeans, shirt, and belt that had skargent technology in it and a large, crimson war hammer.

When he thought about it, it might be his look which scared people most.

He strode around his house, various pieces of machinery working. Most of them had at least some skargent in them--it was hard to get, but mostly for other people who didn’t build their houses on volcanoes.

Stupid people.

In the center of the room was a large metal vat with a metal grate over it. Inside the vat was molten lava. He had a lump of skargent on top of it, preheating while floating menacingly five feet in the air. Skargent was hard to forge for three main reasons: its strength, the anti-gravity field it emitted, and the fact that it exploded at random intervals.

He sighed as the skargent on the forge glowed bright white, then plasmised the air around it, shaking the house. At the very least, it would preheat faster. But now, he was glad he didn’t have curtains or sofas or anything flammable in this room. Straightening a skargent glove, he reached over and pulled out his hammer.

His power would have been useless to anyone else. He could ignore extreme temperatures, hot or cold, and he was fireproof. As his hammer pounded the metal, he was glad that he couldn’t feel the heat from the molten lava down below.

  
“Here at Farnsworth Industries, we work to make sure that you’re drive is as safe as possible. We work to make sure that our cars can withstand the most rigorous crash without harming the passenger. And, with rear-view cameras, you can safely back up without hitting anything. With armor plating, your car won’t be hurt if you do hit something.

“If you want to go safe, go Farnsworth®.”

Jacquelyn Howard turned off the ad. “Well?”

Cory Farnsworth leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin. “I don’t know why you’re asking my opinion on this. I mean, safety really has been our biggest selling point, and I’ve made sure that our cars can withstand our bragging, but I’m no movie writer.”

Jacquelyn chuckled. “I just needed to go over it with you, make sure there’s nothing you don’t want.”

“On a personal level, I prefered the one where the car drives through a dozen different kinds of obstacles--brick walls, concrete, other cars…” Farnsworth laughed. “Yeah, that one was fun. Maybe we should get a gecko.”

“We don’t need a gecko to sell cars,” Jacquelyn said. She reconsidered. “ _I_ don’t need a gecko to sell cars.”

“But you want one,” Farnsworth said, getting out of his office chair.

“That’s beside the point,” Jacquelyn replied smoothly.

Farnsworth grinned.

Jacquelyn grinned in return. “By the way, I do believe your mother called while we were talking…”

Farnsworth laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, we don’t need a gecko.” After a moment of laughing, he said, “We still up tonight?”

“Yeah. I said yes, didn’t I?”

“Wanted to make sure. Did not fancy sitting around in a restaurant for an hour,” Farnsworth chuckled. His phone vibrated, and he pulled it out. “Charles Hardin Farnsworth.” He paused for a minute. “Yeah, okay. Got it. I’ll be there.” He put the phone up. “Yeah, Jacquelyn, I’ll meet you at...is eight good?”

“Yeah, but, don’t you have a meeting in ten minutes?”

“Tell ‘em my mother called. Close enough to the truth, anyway.” He walked over and opened the window. “I hope this side opens onto Main Street…”

“It’s called ‘Center Street’, actually.”

“I’ll see you at eight,” Farnsworth said before jumping out the window.

Jacquelyn stood still. After a minute, the door opened, and Andrew, a business associate and close friend, peeked in. “Hey, Cory, I--where’s Charles?”

“He got a call from his mother,” Jacquelyn said dryly.

“Ouch. Wait, is that better or worse than dealing with whatever supervillain just popped up?”

“Honestly? I’d rather face a supervillain.”

Andrew sighed. “At the very least, we decided to not base ourselves in Cairn City.”

“Honestly, is New Athens that much better?” Jacquelyn said quietly.

Andrew considered. “Well, there’s no dragon nesting on our roof.”

  
Snapdragon stared into the vial of vibrant green liquid. He couldn’t feel the heat that was emanating from it, but the vines he’d wrapped himself in could. Several of the yellow flowers situated on his shoulders and arms bubbled enthusiastically.

Cyclone grinned. “It is ten times stronger than the acid you previously used for your plants.” She put a gloved hand on her hip, grinning. She wore a black bodysuit and a sooty lab coat, and her bright blue hair was tied up in a ponytail.

“While this is great, didn’t Silver have you working on something else?” Snapdragon asked.

If he could have seen her eyes through the thick, steampunk goggles she wore, he was absolutely certain they’d have been sparkling. “Oh, he did, but I was waiting for some tests to be done.”

“How long did this take you?”

“Oh, twenty minutes.” She smiled sheepishly.

 _She’s good,_ whispered one of the flowers--he couldn’t remember its name.

“Well, I’m gonna have to go distribute this,” Snapdragon told her. “And...have you actually seen Silver today? I needed to talk to him about security.”

“Well, you know the date,” she told him cryptically.

“Wednesday or January first?” he asked dryly. “Well, if you see him, tell him I wanted to talk to him about Pyro.”

She frowned. “Did you catch him?”

“No, but I have a plan.”

“Save his leg. I’ll need to reverse engineer it to see what’s going on there,” she told him.

“Sure. I’m sure it’s acid-proof, anyway.” He turned his gaze back to the vial. “Or at least, was.”

  
Silver walked with a cloud over his head. He got like this whenever this date rolled around. He strode away from the grave.

He would do it. He wondered, was this the _best_ idea? Probably not. But the criminals of this world would not listen to logic. Snapdragon, Cyclone, Dr. Iron, Funhouser, Cripple--they’d have to listen to them. Those who wouldn’t listen to logic listened to power. His men were powerful.

He’d rule the world with an iron fist, and protect them with a silver shield.


End file.
